catapult magazine

Case: A woman undergoes prenatal genetic testing and finds out that the baby she carries has Down syndrome connected to a genetic disorder known as a Robertsonian Translocation. This condition is traced back and they discover that she is a carrier for the Robertsonian Translocation which greatly increases the odds of further children being effected. The woman is overcome with a sense of embracement and does not want anyone to know of her status as a carrier. However, the woman has a brother who is planning a marriage for the summer. The information we know of his sister increases the odds that he is also a carrier for this genetic condition which then increases the odds of his offspring having Down syndrome. Should her brother be informed of this possibility which would require disclosing information about his sister without her consent, or should the confidentiality of his sister be maintained?

Do we have individual right to our DNA or do we share it with our families?

One thing that worries me about your enthusiastic endorsement of these technologies is this idea that as a whole, change is good—The idea that as long as people are inventing, meddling, changing, interfering, reconstructing, constructing, etc. everything’s alright.

I’m trying to say that these technologies are sometimes good and sometimes bad and sometimes hard to say. Why the wholehearted endorsement of all of it? Does all genetic meddling please God? I don’t think you think it does, so why this extreme position?

My argument here is that before we go screwing things up like we’ve done countless times before, let’s ask why we’re doing it. I personally don’t think we need to clone anything — i think things are fine the way they are. A small elite is set to make a lot of money on this technology and are trying to convince us that we will all benefit from it. I don’t know of many biblical messages endorsing a technology that involves many known and unknown dangers, and stands to benefit only a few.

We should have learned from past experience that advances in technology do not benefit everyone. The green revolution was supposed to eliminate hunger and poverty by making food cheap. It made food cheap for us but we have more people in poverty and dying of hunger than ever. You say, it’s a distribution problem. I say yes it is, so let’s work on the distribution. There’s no problem with the amount of food produced. Why do we believe that we have to clone the prize-heifer to become more fully human, or for the earth to be more fully God’s. I don’t get it.

What do you think about the numerous biblical exhortations to contentment? What would you think about a theology that values keeping some things as they are? (a conservative theology, if you will) If some parts of the earth are the Lords, and other’s aren’t, what makes you sure you know which parts are his and which parts aren’t?

I am not suggesting that we accept progress without questioning. But people will develop God’s creation and sometimes they will develop things in the wrong way (in a way that is harmful to life biologically, psychologically, spiritually). If the world was completely rational, perhaps we could figure everything out theoretically beforehand and decide what would be good for us and what would not. But we cannot control our environment like that. We have to let our environment into the process. In the case of weed-killers and synthetic substances in foods, we are learning our lesson, unfortunately. But learning these lessons is progress too. I think maybe I’m thinking of progress more from a process standpoint than with all the modernist connotations it has now.

What about cloning and the image of God? I don’t know how many scientists and researchers believe that humans are basically no different than animals, and that all of life is merely material, biological processes (however complex). Certainly as Christians we are convinced otherwise. For us it’s one thing to clone an animal, another to clone humans. (Is it possible, by the way, to clone organs without cloning humans?) Would clones be in the image of God as well? Hmmm…

Perhaps the success of cloning will finally break us of the habit of separating spirit from body. It would be truly mind altering for Westerners to realize that, after all, material is spiritual! Especially if there are cloned people walking around with souls, as I suppose they would have to have if they are in any way living beings.

Europeans invented the material/spiritual dualism despite all evidence to the contrary (animals walking around with souls, for example). What makes you think that cloning will teach us anything?

Yeah, well that’s what I’m saying. The untruth of that soul/body dichotomy would finally be challenged by experience itself so that people could no longer hold onto that notion. The issue is not whether changes occur, but whether we can call that “progress”, right? I don’t care if we don’t want to call it progress. I just want to preserve the idea that there’s some kind of meaningful story going on here, not just people making stuff up as they go along with the same level of meaning. And Christians indeed should not hide from this ongoing work into the future. Am I mixing our topics, here? I’m getting confused.

I’m confused too—lots of stuff going on here.

I think it’s fine that you see a meaningful story in history and I think you acknowledge that other people, Buddhists for example, see a different meaningful story in history. Similarly socialists and neo-cons’ idea of historical narrative will differ from yours. But you’re arguing that yours, i mean God’s, is the best one, right? One problem with your approach is that it lacks humility, which leaves you open to easy attack. For example, you claim both that God’s story is the best, and that cloning is eh-ok. Not only that, but you make cloning part of God’s redemptive plan. So if I’m a guy with common sense who sees the dangers of cloning and the kind of greedy thinking it represents, then I’m going to reject your particular version of history as well.

Your version of history has indigenous people mucking around, doing pretty much nothing for thousands of years. Then hard-working, civilized people came along, invented crazy stuff, couldn’t stop hoarding possessions, and obsessed endlessly about how to live longer and how to make cow udders even bigger…you know, doing what God wants people to do. So God’s hard-working people pushed out the lazy people who were content with their salt-less, gun-less existance, and voila, here we are in the 20th century, still obsessing about what to buy next. Will it be a better nose or a cloned hamster? Since I’m wealthy, I would like a cloned boy please, and don’t forget the soul. He comes without any genetic defects, right?

Congratulations, says God, this was the sort of thing I thought you humans would be able to figure out when I made you from clay. Sure it would have worked even better if it hadn’t been for, you know, sin, but all sins considered, I’m happy with you risk-taking, hard-working civilized people. Contentment is for the birds and the lilies.

Excuse the dripping sarcasm, but I don’t feel that your historical story can be made better just by removing the word “progress”. The concept is foundational to your story and I don’t see much difference between it and the high-modernist progress story. Why not embrace a story of decline with true Christians fighting to stem the tide or watching the heathens self-destruct? Seems to me that kind of story is just as biblical as your story of things getting better and better.

I just reread some earlier posts and found that you had written this:

Human beings can’t help but develop the opportunities that are in front of them. Whether you’re a Western capitalist or an aborigine, you’re a participant in creation. Both conquistadors and native American tribes participate in developing God’s world and are also sinful participants in it.

So I’m wrong to suggest you think that hunter-gatherers are less obedient to God’s calling. Would you say that our society would be less obedient to God if we chose to turn our backs on cloning and genetic engineering? Is Europe less godly than America because they have banned gentically modified food? It seems they have chosen not to “develop the opportunities that are in front of them”. Are they less human or what?

I guess what I had been trying to say is that it is all development, that just because we think the age of progress has had its day does not mean that development should (or could) stop. We can’t pretend that it’s even possible for the native Americans to have stayed in their position. For whatever reason, Europeans were thrust (or thrust themselves) upon America and we have to figure out how to move with the changes in an obedient way. I don’t see my view as more arrogant than the view of historians who think they create truth themselves or make a story out of thin air. There is a story (in the many stories) going on that we need to respond to in our own moment. This does not make human beings the story-makers but the story-takers. (now this does belong to the other topic)

I think of cloning the same way I think of other technologies—they can be used for good or ill. It is the responsibility of Christians to find ways to develop God’s creation in the time and place they’ve been given in a way that serves others. America’s cultural values are on heart disease, cancer and obesity. Europe’s on genetic defects. The Native Americans were developing within their own cultural landscape. For whatever reason, God (or the spirit of history) brought European culture on a collision course with Native American culture. And, as a result, there were wrongs done on both sides. In my mind, it’s arrogant to think that human beings can foresee the results of their own sinful activity. We always think we’re so much smarter than back then, but when we look back at this period, we’ll wonder how we could have been so stupid. Well, that’s the story of human history. Cloning is happening. It’s going to happen. It does no good for Christians to just stand by and refuse to participate in a technology that could serve others.

Maybe I’m unfairly reading a technophobia in your comments. Is that what this is? You just would like for things to stay as they were in some primitive state? Do you honestly believe things were any better in another time than they are now? It’s always been shit. And struggle. And people dying. And people living and hoping for a “new world”. Which is why development continues.

Oh yeah, I share your concern for how cloning could easily become only for the rich. Capitalism is a technology too, but I am hopeful that many of the developments we’re seeing—the internet, conflicts over oil in the middle east, the poor quality of cheaply made goods, the abuse of third world nations in the name of free market—are calling our faith in the capitalist system into question. I do not believe the present or recent form of capitalism will be able to survive much longer. But this does not mean it will be completely dismantled and forgotten. I believe and hope that a better system, using certain beneficial elements of capitalism, can and will be developed to meet the needs of more people. But that’s because I’m into the idea of reformation—taking what you’re given and developing it within your historical situation (rather than trying to go back to some garden paradise).

Maybe we could use your attack against cloning (its potential marriage to mere capitalistic interests) as a first fundamental principle for how cloning ought not to be developed. In this way, we could develop on this site a way that cloning could be used in service to others. (Since you and I are not all that familiar with the ins and outs of the science of cloning, we most likely will be very limited in what we can do; but so far I have tried to argue with philosophy and theology for the possibility of people doing good and serviceable work in the area of human cloning. Maybe you will never agree with me that it is possible until someone does it and shows you experientially that it can be done; and when someone does it, then you can write a history about it)